


The Trees Have Eyes

by mikronicos



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Agender Fae, Aromantic, Aromantic Fae, Asexual Character, Asexual Fae, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magick, I Made Up So Much Lore For This, Ish?? - Freeform, Multi, Other, Roman wants to be a knight, Some actual Plot for once, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Trans Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Trans Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, basically a fae!au, fae genitalia is not human but also something i do not want to get into, hes in the closet because, ig idrk, not exactly your completely traditional fae au, set in kinda medieval times???, some exceptions, well at least most fae, yknow its medieval times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikronicos/pseuds/mikronicos
Summary: "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is born again.(I think I made you up inside my head.)I dreamed that you bewitched me into bedAnd sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.(I think I made you up inside my head.)"Between the branches shadows creepSmoking crystals flash with liesDarkened wings fly soft and sweetWhy, you ask?T H E  T R E E S  H A V E  E Y E S
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Deceit Sanders, all relationships probably qprs tbh, potential moxiety, potential prinxiety
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Trees Have Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> aight boys we good we rollin we procrastinated on this for three weeks

Virgil was always different for having an interest in humans. More specifically, zir interest in the company of humans, not rending their flesh and grinding up their bones cause you've got the late night munchies.

Ze didn't think it would get zem killed. Or, at least, that's what Virgil thought as ze laid, paralyzed in pain, on scratchy rose leaf-green grass as zir hand burnt with a taste like smoldering metal and  **magick** . 

The smell of burning fae-flesh filled zir nostrils. Ze couldn't move to displace the sickeningly sweet scent. It burnt zir nose and zir hazy vision barely made out the charred remains of zir right clawed hand. Ze ran zir tongue over zir sharp, razor-pointed teeth and winced as ze drew blood.

How does one get into such a nightmarish situation, a naive reader might ask curiously if one lived in an alternate universe where  **magick** didn't exist and people used a cheap imitation called 'science' to read this winding tale. Well, an equally naive author would respond, it all started because of a torn cloak. Virgil remembered the bloodstained sky-blue satin clear as crystal.

**\---------------------------**

Virgil had been dangling precariously from the flexible branch of a weeping willow. Ze did not mind if ze fell, because the forest, like many other things, was quite alive and quite hostile to one that is not their own. Luckily, Virgil was a child of the twisting, overgrown forest, and reality would bend as easily as the branch ze dangled upon to catch zem.

Zir friend Deceit hung similarly on a higher branch. Eyr  **magick** worked in ways mysterious even to the fae who shunned em, and vines curled like snakes around eyr bare foot as easily as a fae could not tell a lie. Well, except for Deceit, but, as previously mentioned, eyr  **magick** was strange and unknown to eyr kind.

Sleep, zir other friend and close-knit broodmate, swung back and forth on a branch that looked dangerously close to cracking with a sound like the purring of lightning owls. Sleep’s clawed hands almost always had a pouch of nectar dangling from Sleep's fingers. The leaf-woven pouch lay abandoned on a branch three twig-lengths above Sleep.

Duke dangled in midair near the trio of oddities, the oddest of the bunch if we’re being quite honest, which fae are quite good at being. Duke enjoyed bending reality and taking advantage of faer truth-revealing skills came as easily to fae as each passing breath. 

Virgil felt zir legs slip from the branch and barely had enough time for zir eyes to widen before ze hit the ground. Fortunately for zem, reality melded with zir needs and ze landed as if ze had just stepped feather-lightly onto the soft, sharp-scented grass. It was a heady scent, like wildflower honey and fresh-cut rose leaves. 

“Ooh,” a sharp voice like a point-thin blade sliced through the air, which flew dark and thick with magic. “That looked painful.” The voice laughed with a high-pitched ringing of bells. The sentence was saturated with a sort of delicate sarcasm, because ey knew that falls in eyr mother’s arms couldn’t hurt more than a feather-light leaf dancing along soft skin.

Virgil glared up at Deceit, who had been speaking, with thin cat-slitted purple eyes. A similar ocular trait was shared by Deceit, although eyr heterochromia didn’t quite match up with most other fae. All other fae, in fact. Deceit was the only fae in recorded history that had the human trait of heterochromia. Of course ey were outcast for it.

Before zir train of thought could derail further, ze heard a faint rustling from zir right, like the padding of deerfoot against the soft dark ground. The steps were too uneven, too heavy, and they sounded nothing like the near-silent brushing of dainty hooves.

Virgil leaped up with a push that defied reality’s version of gravity and held on to the branch above zem with a clawed, pale hand; the claws dug gouges deep into the weak, rain-softened wood. Ze pulled zemself up with a grunt and balanced on zir toes like a ballet dancer, peering down with silent curiosity at the figure below. 

He was blond, his curly hair so unlike the dark halos of the fae. His eyes glittered like pools of the enchanted water the fae drank, hiding behind large round glasses. His cloak was blue like his eyes and torn, the satiny fabric shredding as easily as human parchment. He moved frantically, calling out a name in the unfamiliar tongue of humans. Virgil leaned forward, listening eagerly to the rarely-heard human language. “Wromain? Wromain, vheir art you?” Virgil could make out. The tongue of the fae was so unlike the words he spoke, so much more lyrical and twisting. Comparing the languages was like comparing a thorny rose to a soft white lily.

Virgil perched, uncertain, in the cover of of the feathery, sharp needles that pricked at zir pale skin. The branch ze crouched upon shook lightly and ze looked up to see Deceit leering down at zem. Virgil quickly wove a silence spell out of the air that flew thick with  **magick** and cast it, muttering, “Etain.” Deceit glared at zem. A fae can only cast  **magick** on another if they know the other’s  **true** name. Deceit hated eyr name. It brought back memories of-  _ no. _

The golden-haired boy froze, then peered up into the thick blanket of green. “Wh- Who’s there?” He stumbled over his words, pulling a pendant of roughly cut blue gemstone from underneath his shirt. “Hello?” The boy stepped back cautiously onto the grass and tripped over an unassuming root, sprawling to the grass that pricked his sun-warmed skin.

Deceit glared at Virgil once more and leaped off of the branch with ethereal grace, twisting the magic of the forest and returning to Remy and Remus. Virgil turned back to the boy, watching with wary, pale eyes. The boy’s eyes were like chips of frozen spring water, boring into zir’s. Virgil deliberated for a moment, then stepped off the branch and floated softly down.

The boy recoiled and stumbled away from him, ripping the chain on his pendant as he tore it off his neck and held it in front of him like a talisman. Which was ridiculous, by the way. Only dwarves can craft talismans, never mind  _ enchanting _ one, which was an elf’s practice.

Virgil held out zir hands cautiously, “Vhat is thour naim?” Ze struggled to pronounce the human words. 

The boy stared at him in incomprehension before stuttering out, “P- Patton… Oh gosh, I shouldn’t have told you that! Mother always told me to never tell my name to a fae, and mama’s going to skin me!”

Virgil hesitated, pondering.  _ Should I  _ **_cast_ ** _ on him? What if he just runs away? What if my  _ **_magick_ ** _ doesn’t work or it hurts him?  _ Ze reached out with a tentative, clawed hand and tapped on Patton’s shoulder, “Patton.”

Patton jerked back at zir cold, clawed touch, crying out and stumbling into a tall, dark tree. “Mani cael utae done ae amae? Mani am allae quenata?!” His eyes were blown wide and shiny.

Virgil put zir hands in front of zem as a sign of surrender, approaching Patton slowly as one would a wounded animal. “Allae'm ila autien ae awra utae, Patton. Allae simply showed utae amin words.”

Patton crept forward warily, clenching his pendant in a white-knuckled hand. “Mani ume utae un ae amae? Sut ume utae un om?”

“ **Magick**.” Virgil paused. “Allae'll tua utae eska manka utae merna.  **Magick** pahi auta rato.” Ze reached out with a clawed, pale hand as an offering of help.

Patton hesitated, then took Virgil’s hand, “Telle'utae, nan allae must yeste' sinta tanya utae pahi ila awra amae.”

Virgil closed zir eyes and moved his fingers in a quick, fluid pattern. “Allae vesta ae ila awra utae tenna' utae cael returned ae llea eska.” The words were more lyrical than the language of bells ze spoke, and zir voice vibrated with magickal energy. The seal ze had traced in the air glowed purple for a bright moment, then the glow fell away like a thin sheet of gossamer.

Patton nodded and clasped Virgil’s hand tighter to his. “Can mos auta ae the village sii?” Virgil tilted zir head in a nearly imperceptible nod and turned to face Patton’s side. “Mani na- ah!” Virgil interrupted him, picking him up bridal style and laughing sharply at his shriek. His gleaming, razor-pointed teeth glinted at Patton with an open-mouthed, thin-lipped smile and he realised what a terrible idea this was. He was alone in an unfamiliar wood, a leering fae towering over him and he was practically helpless. His cloak, sewn by his mama, was ripped and bloodstained, and his mother’s pendant was broken and he was so,  _ so scared- _

“Na utae neho?” A sharp voice cut through the air that was still thick with magick from zir vow. Patton nodded and Virgil leaped up to a branch about twenty arm’s-lengths above them. Patton’s gold curls bounced and shimmered as the air whistled in his ears. He cried out as Virgil hit the branch. Virgil seemed unfazed. Ze inhaled, long and deep, and then turned to face the mid-afternoon sun. Virgil launched zemself into the air with a cry like bells and sickly sweet smoke. The world turned into a blur of green and blue around Patton as he clenched his arms tightly around Virgil’s neck. His nails dug into zir flesh. Patton could feel his nails turning purple from the cold, pale skin. Virgil’s gossamer cloak whipped into his face and he closed his eyes. Time flew like wings on air and soon Patton opened his eyes to blinding sunlight, sprawled on the ground. He looked around, searching for the fae who had helped him. Unseen, a dark figure returned to the sea of green behind him.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

Virgil was splayed across the prickly ground, black blood soaking the carpet of green. Ze was paralyzed with pain and fear. Ze could feel zemself getting weaker and weaker the longer ze stayed away from the forest that sustained zem. Zir vision grew hazy, like ze was looking through double-paned glass. The ground was spinning and ze couldn’t stop it. Ze was too weak to cast **magick-** _ze was defenseless._ A figure opened the iron gate and gasped. Virgil jerked away from rough, grasping, _human_ hands and the world went **black as pitch.**

**Author's Note:**

> ok so their conversation in faespeak is roughly this:
> 
> Patton: "What have you done to me? What am I saying?!"  
> Virgil: "I'm not going to hurt you, Patton. I simply showed you my words."  
> Patton: "What have you done to me? How did you do it?"  
> Virgil: "Magick." /text/ "I'll take you home now. Magick will go soon."  
> Patton: "Thank you, but I must first know that you will not hurt me."  
> Virgil: "I promise to not hurt you until you have returned to your home."  
> Patton: "Can mos auta ae the village sii? /text/ "What ar-"  
> Virgil: "Are you okay?"
> 
> \------------------------------------
> 
> How was it? Leave a comment, kudos or bookmark/subscribe! The next chapter is coming soon!


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